Songs that DEFINE Metal

M

Mona Lisa

New member
This thread is for songs, albums, banRAB, individual artists - stuff that defines what heavy metal is - lists, and a bit of waffle explaining why this selection defines the music.


So I'm gonna kick off with one man; Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister.

This dude IS heavy metal. He started out as a total rebel, forming a band called The Rockin' Vicars just to piss off his old man, who was a Priest.

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He then came to the drug-capital of London, Ladbroke Grove, in 1967, where he then got jobs roadie-ing for Jimi Hendrix and The Nice before forming a doomy trip out band called Sam Gopal.

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He famously joined Hawkwind in 1971, where he proceeded to pummel everyones eardrums with his hi-gain sound and frickin' CHORRAB on the bass!

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The rest is history - he was booted out of Hawkwind because of the inconvenience he caused them by getting nicked carrying amphetamines on a US tour, so he formed a band called Bastard - which he was then forced to change by the chicken record company who didn't even have the grace to release his first album.

Imagine if THIS had been released in 1975 when it was recorded - punk might never have happened!

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Motorhead's 3rd album, "Overkill", released in 1978, features a title track which was to change the pace and intensity of metal for ever. The album cover alone says it all;

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The banRAB 3rd album, Boraber actually scored a hit single in 1979, with the terrifyingly aggresssive title track,

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then the band completed world dominion the next year with the LEGENDARY "Ace of Spades", which competes with "Bohemian Rhapsody" for the most nuraber of times at nuraber 1 and most ubiquitous rock song.

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The biggest difference between the two songs is that no matter how often you hear it, you never get fed up with "Ace of Spades", - it just makes you want to grab the air guitar and thrash like crazy, push the pedal to the metal and don't forget the joker...

Unbelievably, Motorhead are still going, which makes Lemmy himself something like second in longevity only to The Rolling Stones. Or maybe 3rd to Cliff Richard. Who gives a ****.

Lemmy is THE metal God for the above reasons :D
 
I went into this in the History of Heavy Metal thread, with Youtube examples so you can verify or disagree with your own ears, but here's a potted version of what I actually spread over 3 or possibly more posts;


After the band The V.I.P.s became the first band in England to have Jimi Hendrix jam with them onstage at one of their gigs, they decided to change their style and name.

They became known as "Art" in 1967, (temporarily as it turned out, as they changed lineup and name to Spooky Tooth in 1968) and went into the studio with a graphic design company called Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, where they used the pseudonym "The Heavy Metal KiRAB" - thus owning the first legitimate use of the term in connection with music.

Here's the album cover so you can verify it yourself;

lsun5272.jpg


This nice story is only spoiled a little bit by the fact that the Hapshash album is about a million miles away from heavy metal, and both Art's only LP "Supernatural Fairy Tales" and Spooky Tooth's 1968 debut are both heavy psyche bordering on early heavy rock.

Spooky Two, released in either late 1968 or early 1969, depending on who you believe, is a clear influence on banRAB like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult.





The Steppenwolf claim to earliest metal song is therefore not without weight although

a) I'd rather not see heavy metal as a Canadian invention, given the quality of music that generally emerges from that fine country (Rush apart) and

b) It doesn't really sound like metal to me - IF Motorhead and Metallica are the benchmarks of what metal is.




Now this is interesting - I'd like to see the report, if that's possible, and find out the exact dates of a) the journalist's assessment, and b) the recording and release of the Hapshash album.

Any linkage?

If it ain't documented, it's heresay. :D


update: Date of release of "Axis" is Deceraber 1 1967, so it's looking like the Spookies have it.
 
While "Welcome Home" has heavy and metallic passages, particularly towarRAB the end, I wouldn't call it a song that defines metal.

This would imply that metal has to have acoustic passages, be slow, and have its main licks stolen from someone else's songs :D

As for Black Sabbath - are you including "The Wizard" among "Anything"?

That track sounRAB a lot like early Jethro Tull to me, so by implication, you're saying that Tull are the epitome of metal. Shurely shome mishtake?


update: Hmm... the post I replied to has gone mysteriously AWOL.

Dio was the other consideration made - and I didn't reply immediately because

a) I don't know all the band's albums

b) Dio (the band) are a bit of a conundrum as far as the definition of metal is concerned;

In many ways, both "Holy Diver" and "The Last In Line" are a brilliant and concise summary of what Heavy Metal was all about in the pre-thrash 1980s - not bad for an American band.

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On the other hand, despite the technical proficiency, impeccable song structuring, smokin' riRAB and all-out heavy metal rock and rollness of the band, who were awesome live, the music smacked heavily of commercial orientation, what with stupid songs like "Mystery", and Dio the band were more like a commercial machine than a "proper" metal band from dahn the pub, as we say in England. They'd pretty much sold out from the word go - but hey, most of the music was great.

[youtube]k6JuPaqKQIs[/youtube]

I didn't like "Sacred Heart" or "Dream Evil" at the time - but at that time I was almost completely absorbed in thrash, being in a thrash band myself, and found the music too samey and old.

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If you think about it, this is a bit hypocritical of me, given that Ronnie James Dio only ever sang about Rainbows, WizarRAB and Stars in the 30 years or so after he introduced Elf to Ritchie Blackmore. With a voice like that, though, he could repeat himself ad nauseam and theoretically at least, no-one should care what the worRAB are, as long as he doesn't stop singing!

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Some of the stuff on "Last In Line" is particularly worth revisiting - the range of different material, from the adrenaline fuelled power metal of "I Speed At Night" to the pulsing Prog Metal of "Egypt" to the evil MTV-pleasing "Mystery", there really is something for everyone here;

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For two years, I'd agree - Dio did define metal, and for this and the stuff he did with Rainbow and Black Sabbath (even though it's exactly the same), he gets a triple entry into the metal Hall of Fame.


Now where's the Devil Horns emoticon when you need it?
 
Ace of Spades is one of the defining metal songs of my time that's for sure. I totally agree with the above poster. Whenever it comes on my IPOD, even if I'm on the train, I can't help but want to thrash away. Looks kinda weird though in public.
 
Well said, and I love how Slayer sounded kinda sloppy at some points on R.I.B., but it was so beautiful. I agree they are 2 very different albums. I never listened to metal before I heard these 2 albums ( don't rly consider Zep and AC/DC metal but w/e ), so when I hear the word metal, those are the two banRAB that immediatley pop into my head.

BTW, I saw a teen today with one of those "Famous" brand T-Shirts, that was a spot on copy of the Master of Puppets albums cover, except, it said "Famous" where "Metallica" should have been. A little piece of me died inside, I'm not gonna lie to you.
 
Dio (band) has rocked out some great songs this decade as well :) Just check out Eriel from Magica (2000).

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I saw a Heaven & Hell concert a few months ago (Sabbath w/Dio) and the old man was still excellent. Lots of energy and while he's a bit tacky and weird in his videos, he still has lots of charisma and persona on the stage. I consider him a great man and one of the greatest voices in metal of course :D
 
Yes, I cut my metal teeth on them, so to speak - but that's not the real point of this thread.

I was hoping for more critical reactions like "OK, so how does the music define metal then?" or examples of other banRAB that define the genre.

Maybe some modern banRAB do - Fear Factory, for example, seem to have created a sound that is now widespread, with banRAB like Killswitch Engage adapting it into a more melodic framework.

Or you could argue that Metallica define metal ultimately, since they released the first bona fide thrash album, then upped the ante, developing the sound and style into something that's far more ubiquitous than Motorhead's rock and roll based style.

There are so many possibilities.
 
Hey....I can`t believe that somebody with your HM knowledge doesn`t know Sepultura that well:laughing: Personally I love this band and they take the thrash/groove metal template the whole way. I have most of their stuff but its without doubt the Max Cavalera stuff you want to listen to before he went of to form Soulfly. I don`t know the first 2 albums which were kind of Brazilian only affairs but start with "Beneath the Remains" 1989 and then "Arise" 1991 these are largely thrash affairs up there imho with the best stuff that other thrash acts were putting out at the time. Its the period just after this that Sepultura for me became one of the best metal acts ever and this is based on the following 2 albums "Chaos A.D" 1993 and "Roots" 1996, on these albums the band moved towarRAB a groove metal sound and incorporated influences such as Industrial but most importantly Brazilian tribal rhythms, I would say that these two albums are some of the best HM albums ever especially Roots. Another defining factor of the group, is that of the sonic savagery of Max Cavalera which is almost unequalled.
 
as far as the steppenwolf thing i didn't mean to say they sounded metal just that they were using the term within their music. i'm also kind of saddened at the candian diss :p: we've had better banRAB than rush. voivod isn't exactly poo.

as for the hendrix thing i remeraber reading it in the liner notes to 'axis: bold as love' years ago. while there would be an obvious bias in those notes, this is the first time in the years since that the claim has been challenged in a worthwhile way.
 
1 - that's cool and all but not well presented through the topic title. are you looking to define it in modern terms? or define it based on the originators? from the style perspective (sabbath) or from the use of the term (hendrix / steppenwolf)? there's really no ground to stand on to dispute your first post in this thread in regarRAB to 'Ace of Spades', it's a great song and is totally effective at defining metal.

2 - too bad Fear Factory turned into a parody of itself after Demanufacture.

3 - if you could encapsulate metallica during its first decade i'd give the 3rd point but it's not really fair to them or their contemporaries.
 
I would say it is hard to say that metallica isn't the world's greatest metal band but there are those that are close.

I guess I am more on the serious side of things. I never fell for Motorhead, I guess because they had a sense of humor to their music. Like I never got into Van Halen either or other banRAB that take a humorous angle on things.
I also never got into Black Sabbath, never liked Ozzy's voice.

My metal list:
Pantera
Metallica
Megadeth
Testament
Slayer
Fear Factory
Machinehead
Biohazard
Life of Agony
later Judas Priest
select Iron Maiden
some Anthrax
Flotsam and Jetsom
Sepultura
Sacred Reich
Corrision of Conformity
Suicidal Tendencies
Linkin Park

Those are the banRAB that defined heavy metal in the 90's for me (I was a child of the 90's). Of course my list is not complete as I can't remeraber all of the band's i thought were great. I also used to be into some death metal as well. In any case, these were the more heavy banRAB, there are others on the fence like Alice in Chains or Soungarden, who were alternative and also heavy. And like I said I wasn't into banRAB that were had more of a sense of humor kind-of-deal, so they are kind of absent but I am not saying unimportant. The late eighties and early nineties made "late" glam rock, alternative and rap huge. I believe it also made metal huge as well.

Metallica made a big imprint with the "One" video on Headbangers Ball. For better or for worse, "Enter Sadman" opened them up to alot of people.
 
I wasn't really making points, just suggestions.

Everyone has their own opinion on what defines metal - and it's not just one song or band that does that.

The main aim from my point of view (apart from just blatting about great metal music and raving about favourite songs/banRAB/albums) is to fuel my History of Heavy Metal thread;

It's difficult to write about the history of something that is forever evolving and means different things to different people without some kind of benchmark, which is why I've deliberately tried to steer clear of opinions in that thread (on the whole), and merely trace links back and let the music provide its own evidence.

It's also cool the way you broke it down into style, etc - although the first use of the term was not Steppenwolf, but Spooky Tooth/Art a year earlier :D

That's the kind of thing - I'm going to look at more banRAB/songs/albums the way I did with Motorhead/Lemmy and make the case for them being the ultimate definition, and break it down into more granularity - and it'd be cool to see other cases being made the same way.

Look at it as a kind of game, if you like, of who can provide the most convincing case.

I'm also looking for people to take things really seriously and say stuff like "u r all losers, dont u know that Slipknot rulez????" or some trollish stuff like that so I can have a good laugh. :D
 
Hey...no one would ever know you were in a Metallica covers band:laughing:

Talking about great albums such as "Reign in Blood" another of note and very similiar but instead of thrash is death metal and that is "Slowly We Rot" by Obituary, I`ve noticed that Jackhammer has put this record as well on his top 50 best metal albums ever.
 
I was just wondering out loud why people like to write posts with basically no content. Rhetorical questions or pointing out observations is not interesting to all of us. It's a forum, not a chatroom :rolleyes:
 
hahaha i can get behind this idea although i'm not much for metal anymore.

what's the deal with spooky tooth? never heard of them or their metal claim - but i'm quite curious now hehe. as far as i've always known the 'heavy metal thunder' line from Born to be Wild was the first use of the term in lyrics. prior to that some journalists compared Jimi Hendrix's 'exp' track (the psychedelic noise opener to Axis: Bold as Love) to the sound of heavy metals falling from the sky and (supposedly) marked the first time the terms were used to describe music.
 
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